Part 1: Origins and youth -- Profession and vocation -- Junction -- My catalyst -- Architectural megalomania -- Greatest assignment -- Obersalzberg -- New Chancellery -- Day in the Chancellery -- Our Empire style -- Globe -- Descent begins -- Excess -- Part 2: Start in my new office -- Organized improvisation -- Sins of omission -- Commander in Chief Hitler -- Intrigues -- Second man in the state -- Bombs -- Hitler in the Autumn of 1943 -- Downhill -- Part 3: Illness -- War thrice lost -- Blunders, secret weapons, and the SS -- Operation Valkyrie -- Wave from the West -- Plunge -- Doom -- Hitler's ultimatum -- Thirteenth hour -- Annihilation -- Epilogue: Stations of imprisonment -- Nuremberg -- Conclusions -- Index